Chasing Shadows
by LisaT
Summary: Five centuries ago a powerful witch sat on England's throne: Elizabeth I. Few people know that she was also Headmistress of Hogwarts. This is how.


_Part of this story was posted here as _The Headmistress's Tale. _Here is the full complete version as posted on the hogwartsgenfic comm on LJ. It is also something of a literary experiment as the style and POV shifts slightly from vignette to vignette as delineated by the dividing line which should - SHOULD - appear.  
_

_The inspiration is very simple: rumours and hints of witchcraft have swirled around Anne Boleyn and her daughter Elizabeth for 500 years. What if they were true? _

_Points to those historians who recognise the actual quotes within the story!_

_And, as always, **review**._

* * *

It is time.

Spain is defeated. The Queen of Scots is dead. England rides high on a wave of triumph and hope. ...and it is time for me to lay down one of my sacred charges, and take up the other that has been so long neglected. My shadow in the sun, which has always followed me flying.

Now at last I will pursue it.

But first I must tell the truth. The legend they tell of me, their white hope and virgin queen, is not the whole story.

It is true that my mother died on the block on charges of adultery and witchcraft when I was little more than a babe. It is true that many years of neglect followed, before my father's marriage to Katherine Parr changed my life. It is true that when my father died, I went to live with my stepmother, and was then most scandalously pursued by her new husband, Tom Seymour.

A handsome man, a charming man... a man of much wit and very little judgement.

My poor stepmother died in childbed, believing that all she had loved had played her false. Seymour began to take greater and greater risks. Already a powerful man he chose to gamble his life for the highest stakes of all : the hand of a princess of the blood. He failed spectacularly, and it was only by great good fortune that I and mine did not follow him to the scaffold.

According to the tale they tell of me, at this point I went into seclusion. Those few times I did appear I was pious and sober and dressed in plain robes of black wool. I became the Protestant Princess, the King's entirely beloved sister.

They do not know that the rest of the time, I time I spent away from the public gaze... I spent at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Naturally, and most appropriately, I was Sorted into Gryffindor. At Hogwarts my heritage was honoured; there I did not feel it necessary to hang my head with shame when the name Anne Boleyn was pronounced. My mother was a powerful witch, they said, with admiration and respect. Their acceptance won them my undying friendship, and I am a friend not won with trifles, nor lost with the like.

In our soothsaying lessons they said that I would indeed be Queen, that I would draw the country together and defeat a powerful foe. This I have done.

They also said that in addition to my duty to my country, I owed another duty : to Hogwarts. For centuries Howard women have taken their places as leaders in the wizarding world, and this I must do also. For I am married to my country : not simply the Catholic portion, the Protestant or the Puritan - but to all of it, Muggle and Wizard alike, regardless of what they believe. My duty is to rule their bodies, not to make windows into their souls.

And so now I will lay down my crown, my sceptre and my orb : these Hallows of Muggle majesty and power. I will abdicate in favour of the King of Scots and find a delicious irony in the knowledge that Mary wanted this above all things.

I am Elizabeth of England.

I have been princess, bastard, princess again, declared traitor, virgin, goddess, lover and Queen.

I sign the scrolls detailing my abdication in favour of my cousin's son, and feel that part of me which has henceforth been my shadow in the sun come forth.

I have been divided always. I am, and not. I freeze and yet I burn, since from myself, my other self I turn...

I am Elizabeth of England.

I am also Elizabeth Tudor, one time pupil of Hogwarts, and now its new Head Mistress.

My duties are fulfilled, and I am complete.

At last I am free of my shadow.

* * *

Elizabeth Tudor sat with her knees clasped to her chest with slender hands and gazed unseeingly out of her window. Her fiery hair lay in limp strands around her shoulders, and her normally pale skin looked almost translucent as it stretched across sharply defined cheekbones.

She was terrified.

Two days ago, her inefficient but doting governess and treasurer had been removed for questioning. Elizabeth knew what that meant, and she shuddered to think of either of them in the Tower. Neither was blessed with great intelligence, and they were intensely loyal to their young mistress ... but Elizabeth knew that not even the deepest felt loyalty was proof against the torturer's instruments.

I am innocent, she repeated in a feverishly repetitive mantra. I declined Tom Seymour's offer of marriage. What happened before then in the house of my stepmother was no fault of mine...

Her hands trembled and she clutched her thin nightgown so tightly that she could feel her sharp nails dig into the fleshy part of her hands through the fabric.

And soon she must expect a spy. "My wife will attend you shortly," Sir Robert Tyrwhit had sneered in his officious manner.

"I will accept no lady governess but Katharine Ashley," she'd snapped back at him, her chin held high.

Tyrwhit had smiled unpleasantly. "You'll do as you're told, or suffer the consequences, lady." He'd left her without attempting even the sketchiest of bows.

Once, Elizabeth would have resented that slight with every last ounce of her fierce Tudor pride. Now she cared little, and remembered only that she was but fourteen. Edward Somerset's England was a dangerous place for a princess who could potentially pose an obstacle in the way of an ambitious man's plans. A princess, moreover, whose legal status was, to put it mildly, ambiguous.

I have to get away, she thought with the frantic despair of an animal caught in a trap. I have to get away. But how ...?

"My lady," an unknown voice said behind her.

Shaken out of her introspection, Elizabeth swung around to face the speaker, and her brow creased a little. "You are not Lady Tyrwhit," she accused.

The other woman's lips twitched. "I must commend you on your powers of observation, my lady."

Elizabeth repressed the desire to either scowl childishly or to throw something - preferably heavy - in the direction of her unknown visitor.

"My name is Minerva Stewart," the visitor announced, and for the first time Elizabeth noted the Scots accent.

"You are a Scotswoman," she observed, and then added, snidely, "How does a Scotswoman come to be named after a Roman goddess?"

Minerva Stewart gave a cat-like smile. "And how, my lady Princess, does an Englishwoman come to be named after a Jewess?"

Elizabeth lifted her head. "I am named after my grandmother," she said, proudly.

"Indeed," said Minerva Stewart. "You are, in fact, named after both of your grandmothers."

Elizabeth's faintly marked eyebrows contracted. She was a Tudor, through and through. Her hair, her temper, her very bearing marked her as the daughter of King Harry. Only by emphasising her likeness to her father could she forget the dark-eyed and dark-haired woman who haunted the edges of her memory and her dreams.

No-one ever mentioned her name.

Certainly not in Elizabeth's hearing.

Not since the day that she had asked, "How is it that yesterday I was My Lady Princess, and today naught but the Lady Elizabeth?". Her governess at the time had explained that it was because her mother had gone away, had gone far away and would never return. It was only later that Elizabeth learnt that Anne Boleyn had died by the executioner's sword, and why.

This strange woman, however, had no compunction about reminding Anne Boleyn's daughter of her maternal heritage. "You are named for both of your grandmothers," Minerva Stewart repeated, her tone brooking no argument. "For Elizabeth of York, Queen of England ... and Elizabeth Howard, scion of the Norfolks."

This time, Elizabeth did scowl. "No-one speaks of them to me," she said, sharply.

Minerva Stewart's lips twitched in a knowing smile. "They do not, but I will. Tell me, Elizabeth Tudor, why did your mother die?"

Elizabeth felt the blood drain from her head and struggled with grim determination to stay upright and conscious. "They - they said that she was guilty of adultery and - and foul practices of witchcraft!" she spat at last through stiff lips.

"Do you believe it?"

"I do not know what to believe!" Elizabeth almost shouted. "How can I, I have heard naught but evil of her, always..." She heard something smash, and thought, vaguely, not again ..

"They speak the truth," Minerva Stewart said calmly, ignoring Elizabeth's rapidly deteriorating control. "Your mother was a witch. A very good witch, as it happens." She paused. "I have reason to believe that you are, also."

Elizabeth collapsed limply against broad windowsill that had been her seat a while before. "No."

"No?"

"No. This cannot be," Elizabeth said firmly. "I cannot be a witch. Do you not understand the situation in which I find myself? They are looking for reasons to convict me of treason, Minerva Stewart. I will not be convicted," she spat. "I will not go to the Tower, I will not! I will not die as my mother died, reviled by all... Please," she said, very quietly. "This cannot be. I have only one hope, and that is that one day I will be Queen. If I am a witch then that can never be, and I have nothing to live for." She turned away.

"Why?" Minerva Stewart asked, most provokingly, from behind her. Elizabeth wheeled around, almost bristling in her fury.

"Why? Do you not know how the people regard witches? They burn them, or drown them. If a witch is of noble birth she may be granted the block, but even that is entirely at the King's pleasure. Do you really think that the Lord Protector or the Council would grant me that when they long to see me dead?"

"We could teach you to avoid detection in this Muggle world we know you must live in," Minerva Stewart said. "We have done it before. And here. You asked for proof." She extracted a large book from her robes, flicked through to a page halfway through, and handed it to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth gasped at the weight of the book in her hands and wondered how the slim woman before her had seemed so unencumbered. "How did you - ?"

The other woman indicated a spot on the page. "Look, my lady, and see."

Perplexed, Elizabeth looked down and saw written in a fine hand the name Elizabeth Tudor. It was undoubtedly she; the date of birth was correctly noted as being the seventh day of September, at the Palace of Greenwich, in the year 1533.

She looked up. "What is this book?"

"It is the Book of Names, wherein the name of every child born with magical powers in the kingdoms of England, Ireland and Scotland is inscribed at the child's birth. We use it that we might correctly identify those who require the training we provide."

"'We'?" Elizabeth quoted.

"Indeed. I am no simple noblewoman, Elizabeth Tudor. I am a professor at Hogwarts School for the Education of Young Wizards and Witches. I am perfectly acquainted with your situation, my lady, and I believe that you long for a while to escape the treacherous world in which you live. Am I not right?"

"Yes," murmured Elizabeth, too stunned to prevaricate.

"Then, my lady, will you trust me and come? You need not worry what others will think. We have been preparing for this day for some time, and I have others standing by who will ... arrange it that the Lord Protector and the Council will believe that you have gone into retirement with Lady Tyrwhit, in order to repent of your sins."

Elizabeth stared.

For the first time, Minerva Stewart's rather stern features relaxed in a smile. "You are your father's daughter," she said. "But you are also your mother's. Would you not like to come with me, and learn from us as your mother did, and in the process hear of Anne Boleyn from those who loved her?"

Elizabeth bit into her lip. The woman was simply echoing her own, long unspoken, thought. I am my mother's daughter, too. I will never be permitted to forget it. I would ... very much like ... to know something of the woman who haunts my dreams.

Her head came up and the sun chose that moment to shine. Elizabeth's hair caught fire in an aureole of radiant red-gold. "I must dress."

Minerva Stewart's smile broadened. "That is easily solved," she said, and before Elizabeth had time to respond, the other woman had extracted a long slender stick and waved it ... there was a glimmer... and Elizabeth found herself robed in a gown of her favourite tawny green.

She smiled, and her dark eyes began to sparkle. Then she turned, laughing, delighting in the feel of the rich fabric swinging out from her slender waist.

Minerva Stewart extended her hand, and Elizabeth clasped it. The older woman produced powder from a pouch in her gown, and flung it into the fire. Elizabeth's eyes widened in wonder as the flames turned green.

Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak, but she was too slow.

"Hogwarts!" Minerva Stewart enunciated very clearly, before pulling the startled girl into the fire with her.

Elizabeth felt a rush of excitement as her familiar rooms disappeared.

A new life was beginning.

* * *

It was almost midnight and all the students were tucked up in their beds in the various houses. All the same, Minerva Stewart was not as startled as she should have been when she heard a knock sound on the great front door of Hogwarts castle.

With a wave of her hand, the doors opened, and a tall figure stood in the threshold.

Minerva did not smile in welcome. "You have come," she said.

The figure moved forward into the dim light cast by the flickering lamps on the walls. "Yes."

"You are too late," Minerva said harshly. "Professor Dee died in the early hours of yesterday."

"I am sorry to hear it," the Queen said. "I hoped I would be in time."

Minerva glared. "You have not darkened these doors for twenty years, Elizabeth Tudor. Was it too much to ask, that you might come in time to say farewell to an old man who has loved you always?"

She was not surprised when the woman before her drew herself up to her not inconsiderable full height and returned glare for glare. "And might I remind you, Minerva Stewart, that I am not still fourteen years old, and that I rule here as I do the Muggle world beyond? That was your plan, was it not? To have a witch on the throne."

"I care nothing for your Muggle rank," Minerva snapped. "We do not have titles in the wizarding world, as you know very well, although I grant you that having a witch from a long line of witches on the throne has helped." She let her shoulders slump. "The years seem to be growing crueller to our kind. Not a month passes that we do not hear of some poor woman who has been murdered because the superstitious believe her to be a witch." Her tone was scathing. "They rarely are; real witches know how to disguise themselves."

"The country is splintered," the Queen responded. Minerva thought she sounded .. brittle. "Catholic and Protestant and Puritan - they all believe that theirs is the only way and that all else is false. I say that they quarrelling over trifles. Sadly, I must take such unity where I can find it, and in towns and villages across the land the people are united against what they see as witchery."

"So rather than make windows into their souls, you will burn their bodies?" Minerva spat bitterly.

"I do not answer to you, Minerva Stewart!"

"You may have to, one day. Have you so easily forgotten that which you swore?"

"I swore many things when I was young and in danger!"

Minerva went very still. "You made an Unbreakable Vow."

"And I stand here before you! I would be dead if I was forsworn."

"You owe two duties, Elizabeth of England. Already you have given the Muggles almost twenty years. Must we wait until you are old and feeble before you return to us again?"

"Are you truly so ignorant of what lies beyond?" the younger woman shouted. "Do you not know that I hold the Queen of Scots prisoner, and that they are those who see her presence as a reason to depose me? Then there is my good Council, who are so keen to root out evil that they would drive my loyal Catholics into the arms of Spain. If Philip of Spain invades us with the backing of our English Catholics, do you think we can stand against him? And what of the wizarding community when we have the Spanish Inquisition in England, answer me that!"

Minerva stood stunned. "We have faced the Spanish before - " she began.

Elizabeth turned and her gown moved about her like a living thing. She bristles with energy, Minerva thought, she is as hard and mult-faceted and as precious as the diamond. And we need her.

"- think that what you saw in my sister's reign was anything to worry over, then you are innocent indeed," Elizabeth said, her voice dripping scorn. "My sister had many faults, but she was Sovereign, not her husband. Even Philip could do only so much. But if he comes here as your King, you may be certain that Hogwarts and the wizarding world will be attacked with every weapon in his arsenal. You forget, I know the man. Merlin help me, I flirted with him, in an attempt to save my own life!"

"Yes, you are skilled in that, indeed," Minerva could not resist saying.

Elizabeth locked eyes with her, and the Headmistress found herself shivering slightly. I have gone too far, she thought. I have forgotten who and what this woman is...

"Tell me what you want of me," the Queen said at last, breaking a silence that threatened to become dangerous.

"We - I - want you here, Elizabeth. It is becoming harder and harder to hide ourselves from the Muggles, and without Hogwarts, the wizarding community in England will die. You know it. We need a magic like the old magic that removed the Isle of Avalon from the sight of Muggles, but only one who is bound equally to the wizarding and Muggle worlds, only one who is bound to the very land itself, can effect it."

Minerva heard a sharp sound as Elizabeth drew a startled breath. "You want me to take your place here, as Headmistress, and cast a glamour that is rooted both within the living rock of the castle and in the earth beneath?"

"That is what I ask of you," Minerva confirmed. "Twenty years ago it was Seen that you would gain the wish of your heart and reign as Queen before returning to us, and you swore then that you would treasure both parts of that Seeing equally."

Elizabeth was silent. "I have done this, although you do not believe it." She sounded weary. She moved under a lamp, and the older woman was able to see how time and authority and power had sharpened the Queen's features and drawn lines around her eyes and turned those same eyes into onyx.

"I have a suggestion," Minerva said. "Am I right in thinking that a confrontation with Philip of Spain is inevitable?"

Elizabeth gave a hard-edged smile. "It is not improbable. The Queen of Scots is a fool, and while I will not willingly sign her death warrant, her own stupidity and the eagerness of my Council to see her dead may force my hand. Once Mary of Scots is dead, Philip will seize his chance."

"And do you think England can resist?"

Elizabeth lifted one elegant shoulder and the tiny pearls that trimmed her bodice gleamed. "At the moment? No, she cannot. But in ten years... perhaps. Ten years more to allow my Church to put down roots amongst the people, and unite them. Ten years more to turn memories of my sister's reign into a legend and a cautionary tale..."

Minerva tapped her lips with a forefinger. "If you swear to me that you will return here then, once Spain is defeated and the threat of her gone from our shores ... If you will promise me this, I will see to it that the wizarding world will give you whatever aid we can during the battle."

Elizabeth's face lit up, and Minerva found herself remembering a girl of fifteen and her joy when she first successfully Transfigured a piece of parchment into a pair of gloves. "Can you do this thing?"

Minerva inclined her head. "I will do it."

"Then I will promise it. I will give you no answer answerless. On my honour as a witch, when we are free from the Spanish threat, I will lay down my current place and come here to take yours."

"Do you have your wand?" the Headmistress asked, showing her own.

Elizabeth smiled and extracted hers, made of oak and dragon heartstring.

For the first time in this meeting, there was amity between them as Scots pine and English oak touched in a magical confirmation of their agreement. Once it was done, the two witches smiled, a little tentatively, at each other.

"What do you do now?" Minerva asked.

"I return to my host's. I am on my annual pilgrimage across my country, you see. It is indeed fortunate that my present host lives close to an Apparation point, and that the women I have with me are easily bribed."

"I see. This is farewell, then, until we meet again, Elizabeth of England."

"Until we meet again, Minerva of Hogwarts."

Minerva was certain that the Queen of England was smirking as she once again ventured into the world beyond. The Headmistress shrugged a little and shook her head slightly before departing herself.

A weight had lifted.

They were safe.

With Elizabeth Tudor as its next headmistress, Hogwarts would survive both the immediate future and the centuries that followed.

* * *

The End

_God blew and they were scattered._

-Medallion struck to celebrate the 'victory' over the Spanish in 1588.


End file.
